BEIJING (AFX) - Poor earnings and weak sales are dampening prospects for a listing for Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp (SAIC), the South China Post reported.
'SAIC is not ready to list on the stock market in the first six months of this year and has little hope of doing so in the second half. The earnings performance was poor for the company last year,' the Hong Kong-based newspaper quoted sources as saying.
The company plans to raise two bln usd from its Hong Kong public share offering this year, and last month it formed a joint-stock company, Shanghai Automotive Group, in preparation for the float, the report said.
'In addition, the market share of the company on the mainland has become increasingly swamped as investors pile into the car market. And most of all, the company has a distinct lack of a representative product,' an analyst told the newspaper.
Sponsors for the launch include Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Bank of China and Deutsche Bank.
Alex Fan, the head of research for China at Daiwa Institute, told the newspaper that SAIC - which makes cars with Volkswagen and General Motors Corp - had not made a profit in the first three quarters of last year and was hoping last-quarter sales of GM cars would help offset losses.
SAIC - the country's largest passenger carmaker - last week announced sales of 610,000 units for last year, 20 pct short of a targeted 740,000 vehicles.
Total sales, including buses and other vehicles, amounted to 800,000 units, little changed from 2003 levels.
Passenger car sales on the mainland grew 26.5 pct last year as the market recovered from sluggish sales in 2004, according to official figures from the Union of National Passenger Car Market Information, the newspaper said.
Some 3.19 mln cars were sold in China last year, and the government projects sales of between 6.4 mln and 6.5 mln cars in the coming year, based on the country's current market growth patterns.
The mainland's other major carmaker, Dongfeng Motor Corp, also postponed its initial offering.
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